


In a Bulletproof Vest With The Windows All Closed

by CaitlinFairchild



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Drug Use, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, M/M, Pining, Post-His Last Vow, Suicidal Thoughts, This is not as depressing as it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaitlinFairchild/pseuds/CaitlinFairchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The slate tiles of the roof are growing slick with rain. Sherlock could so easily slip, perched up here like an awkward gargoyle. He could lose his footing in his leather-soled Italian loafers and go cartwheeling into the dark. </p><p>He could. He <em>could</em>.</p><p>He’s poking gingerly around the edges of that thought, like a tongue probing a sore tooth, when he first hears it: a grinding, warbling noise that somehow makes his teeth vibrate. He knows about this sound, of course, you don’t have a sibling who basically runs England without knowing about this, but this is the first time he’s hearing it for himself. </p><p>***<br/>Or: Sherlock Gets a Talking-To From The Oncoming Storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Bulletproof Vest With The Windows All Closed

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow I threw Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Coldplay in a blender and this is the weird-tasting smoothie that resulted.
> 
> The idea I couldn't get out of my head was Sherlock playing Coldplay on the violin like in this video:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4B_P_xeBbU
> 
> And the backstory of how Sherlock would start listening to Coldplay started bubbling, and...then the Doctor showed up.
> 
> _shrugs_ I just live in here.
> 
> As ever, comments are pure love.
> 
> Personal correspondence can be sent to caitlinfairchild1976@gmail.com.
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr:  
>    
> [Caitlinisactuallyawritersname](http://caitlinisactuallyawritersname.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
    
    
    So you lost your trust
    And you never should have
    You never should have
    
    But don't break your back
    If you ever see this
    But don't answer that
    
    In a bulletproof vest
    With the windows all closed
    I'll be doing my best
    I'll see you soon
    In a telescope lens
    And when all you want is friends
    I'll see you soon
    
    --Coldplay, "See You Soon"

Of _course_ Sherlock has a bolt-hole no one, not even Mycroft, knows about. A tiny, disheveled top-floor bedsit on a particularly bleak Brixton side street, this is the place Sherlock comes when he needs to be totally unreachable, off the map, completely alone with his thoughts.

If by ‘thoughts’, one means the eighty quid in brownish, gritty powder currently residing in his coat pocket.

Right now he’s sitting several feet above the flat’s only window, roosting like a six-foot vulture on the steeply pitched rooftop, smoking a Silk Cut and feeling the damp chill of the rainy evening just beginning to settle in his bones. 

He wants to go home. Home to Baker Street, cluttered and cozy. A crackling fire, and tea, and telly. 

But there is no home.

John is gone.

Not _dead_ gone, but gone nonetheless. Losing Mary and the baby broke him, broke him in a way Sherlock is too stunted and clumsy to ever repair, and he left, leaving everything behind but his passport and a change of clothes. 

Sherlock went to Mycroft, of course, stormed into his office on Downing Street, six foot one half inch of desperate angry stormcloud in a poncy wool coat.

“I don’t know where he is, Sherlock, because I have chosen _not_ to know.”

“Then find out.”

Mycroft sighed. “You see, Sherlock, but you do not observe. If John wanted you to know where he is, he would have _told you_. What you could deduce from that, if you were thinking at all, is that he doesn’t want to be found. The man’s life has been destroyed. For the love of God, let him have some peace.”

Sherlock has thought about this. Has, in fact, thought about nothing else since. He understands, at least intellectually, that if you love someone you have to let them go. 

(The fact that he has come to embrace this horrendously trite saying, suitable for a needlepoint wall hanging, as truth? Oh, it galls him _endlessly._ )

He knows he has to accept this. If he loves John he has to swallow down this pill made of pure pain and _let him go_ , so instead of tearing the world apart with his bare hands he shoots up, drugs himself to slow his mind and his reflexes enough to keep himself from chasing after John and dragging him bodily back to London.

It’s only been four days. Sherlock can’t begin to imagine living like this for a month. A year. A lifetime.

The slate tiles of the roof are growing slick with rain. Sherlock could so easily slip, perched up here like an awkward gargoyle. He could lose his footing in his leather-soled Italian loafers and go cartwheeling into the dark. 

He could. He _could_.

He’s poking gingerly around the edges of that thought, like a tongue probing a sore tooth, when he first hears it: a grinding, warbling noise that somehow makes his teeth vibrate. He knows about this, of course, you don’t have a sibling who basically runs England without knowing about this, but this is the first time he’s hearing it for himself. 

(He had occasionally wondered what it would be like, to meet him. Not wished, of course. He's a grown man, with a strictly scientific turn of mind, with no need for aliens and time machines. But he has...wondered.)

Sherlock keeps himself very still, very carefully looking out over the roofline at nothing at all.

 _Which one will it be?_ he wonders. _Scarf? Celery? Eyebrows?_

It’s not until he hears the distinctive sound of Plimsolls (size ten...eleven...no, twelve) on wet tile and sees the pinstriped trouser cuffs in his peripheral vision that he realizes he’s been holding his breath.

Sandshoes, then.

Sandshoes sits down next to him on the slate, heedless of the damp, and says nothing. After a few minutes Sherlock turns his head just a tick to observe him. He looks skinnier in person than he did in the DVD messages, and far younger.

There are a million questions he wants to ask, but, as badly as he is falling apart, Sherlock Holmes fanboys over no one. Not even a Time Lord.

Several minutes pass in silence.

“If you’re looking for my brother,” Sherlock finally says, “I can assure you he’s not in Brixton. Doubtful he could even find it on a map.”

Sandshoes looks up at the sky and huffs out a breath.

“Most people,” Sandshoes says, “Drink a bottle of Pinot, listen to Adele. You? China White and falling off a roof.”

“I’m not most people,” Sherlock says. “And I’m not falling off a roof.”

“No,” says Sandshoes carefully, “but you’re not _not_ falling off a roof, are you?”

Sherlock has no good answer for that, so he remains silent.

“And at the rate you’re going,” Sandshoes says conversationally, “if you manage not to pitch yourself to the pavement, you’re only two or three hits away from a really delightful physical dependency.”

Sherlock snorts in disbelief. “The entirety of time and space...and you decide to show up to be my _drugs counsellor_.”

“You know who I am, then.”

“Of course I do. Rest assured, however, you are not _my_ doctor.”

“No,” says Sandshoes mildly, “I suppose I'm not.”

More silence stretches between them. Sherlock hates being drawn out in this fashion, really he does.

“You’re wasting your time,” snaps Sherlock when he’s had enough of the silence.

The Time Lord smiles.“Good thing I’ve plenty of it, then.”

“What do you _want_?” Sherlock huffs.

“I want,” says the Time Lord, “to make you a deal.”

“I don’t make deals.”

“Please. You make deals all the time. Plus, you haven’t heard what I'm offering.”

Sherlock laughs without humor and rolls his eyes. 

Sandshoes looks at him, as calm as the eye of the storm. Sherlock flaps a hand at him. _Oh, do continue._

“Here it is. If I can give you something better than what’s in your pocket, you’ll hand it over without a fight.”

“And if it’s not better?”

“Then I leave you alone and you can keep on down your spiral without interruption.”

Sherlock considers him for a moment, eyes narrowed. “Everyone who knows you knows you’re a liar.”

It’s Sandshoes’ turn to roll his eyes then. “Sherlock, I’m on your side. I’m not out to trick you.”

Sherlock thinks about it. Really, he’s got nothing to lose. It's not like there's not more heroin to be had in this neighborhood. 

He nods once. “Fine. What do you have to give me?”

Sandshoes brings his impossibly bony knees up to his chest and wraps his improbably long arms around them. 

“You’re on your way to a bad end, Sherlock. If you don’t fall off this roof tonight, you’ll overdose tomorrow, or step in front of a bus on Thursday, or electrocute yourself with an experiment gone wrong in a few weeks' time. Or something. And if you somehow miraculously manage to avoid actively killing yourself, you’ll be a complete junkie within six months, dead within a year, forgotten within five. That’s it. The end.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Again. He’ll sprain something at this rate. “Please, spare me the theatrics.”

“You’re the drama queen on a roof with a pocket full of heroin.”

“Said the man who flies through the sky in a bright blue box fiddling with history.”

“Touche,” Sandshoes says evenly. “The point is, that’s the road you’re taking right now. What if, though…” the man looked up at the sky as if making a decision. “What if there’s another road you’re meant to walk down. A road where you’re meant to be patient. A road where you’re meant to wait for him.”

“You’re not supposed to be doing this,” Sherlock says. “Influencing people’s decisions, changing the future. You’re breaking your own rules, aren’t you? Important time-space rule...things.”

“The thing about time is, it’s a wib--” Sandshoes begins.

“I will push you off this roof if you finish that sentence.”

Sandshoes falls silent, but looks amused.

Sherlock shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s not coming back. He’s done.”

“You think you love him. When are you going to learn to trust in him?” Sandshoes huffs out a breath, a silver cloud in the chill air. “You know who I am. You know what I do. So _trust me_ when I tell you this: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson will be remembered as one of the greatest love stories of the twenty-first century. Two men who found each other despite the odds, who solved mysteries and faced mortal danger and fell in love and grew old together. 

“Twenty, fifty, one hundred years from now, books will still be written and movies will still be made about the two of you. Families will gather around the telly to watch the story of the lonely detective who grew a heart and the loyal doctor who saved him.

“I’m not just here for you, Sherlock. You’re important, of course. But you and John, your story...it’s immortal. It’s supposed to inspire others for decades, maybe even centuries, to come.

“But none of that will happen, you thick, thick man, if you let yourself die instead of trusting John to come back.”

“You don’t know that,” says Sherlock accusingly. “You’re trying to change the future, but you’re just bluffing. You don’t know for sure.”

“You’re right,” the Time Lord says. “I don’t know for certain that everything will turn out all right. Time is...it’s always, always in flux. Nothing is ever certain. But I do know how devastated John will be when he comes home and you’re dead for real this time. I have seen that, Sherlock, with my own eyes. That’s what I’m trying to prevent.”

“If you can change this,” Sherlock asks, “Why _now_? Why not go to John when he’s having whatever adolescent trauma makes him so afraid of who he is? Why not go to him before his wedding and tell him Mary is working for Moriarty to spare him that pain?” There are tears now, sliding unheeded down Sherlock’s face. “Why didn’t you stop the snipers so I never would have lost him _in the first place?"_

“Because...all this, Sherlock?” Sandshoes gestures to the very air around them. “All of this is what makes you what you are to each other. This is your _story._ Can’t you see that?”

Sherlock sits still and silent for a long time as his tears run unchecked in the rain. Finally, he nods, wiping his eyes with his damp coat sleeve, feeling like a small, foolish child. He does understand. It hurts, oh how it hurts, but he does understand. 

Sandshoes’ voice is soft, cajoling. “Hope, Sherlock. That’s what I’m giving you. Isn’t that worth more than what you have in your pocket?” 

Sherlock considers. 

He would endure anything, everything, if he knew at the end John would come home. 

“Do you promise?” he asks, voice thick with tears. 

Sandshoes’ hand comes to rest on his shoulder. It is warm even through the heavy wool of Sherlock’s coat. 

“Yes, Sherlock,” he says. “I promise.” 

Sherlock reaches into the pocket of his Belstaff and pulls out the small wrapped bags. After a moment's hesitation, he drops them into the offered hand. Sandshoes nods once and tucks them inside his jacket. 

“Are we done here, then?” Sherlock asks. 

Sandshoes is silent for a moment. “You could come with me,” he says, tentative. “If you like.” 

__Sherlock considers. It isn’t like he’d never thought about it. He’d wondered about the blue box, about what it would be like to adventure through time and space with this mad, brilliant alien. Of _course_ he had._ _

But at the end of the day, there is only one doctor who will ever claim Sherlock as a companion. 

“Thank you, but no,” says Sherlock. “I think...that’s not the direction I’m supposed to take.” 

Sandshoes smiles. “Probably for the best. I’ve a strict one-madman-per-box policy.” 

The two are silent for a minute. The rain begins to fall harder. 

“Coldplay, I think,” says Sandshoes. “You’ll like Coldplay, with your Pinot.” He catches Sherlock’s blank look. “They’re a band,” he clarifies. 

“I know that,” Sherlock huffs, embarrassed. 

“Course you do.” His hand remains on Sherlock’s shoulder a moment longer. Sherlock finds he doesn’t mind as much as he probably should. 

“Take care, Sherlock,” the Time Lord says, and then he’s gone. Sherlock can hear the front door open and close, the slap of rubber soles on wet pavement. The wavering, grinding buzz rises, pulses, fades. 

Sherlock lights another cigarette, smokes it down to the filter, flicks the butt over the edge of the roof. 

After, he makes his way down the wet tiles to the open window, moving with slow deliberation. 

He is careful not to fall.


End file.
